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Dem Bones

 



Ezekiel 37:3

He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

 

Thought for the day – Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Recently I heard some really sad and distressing news about the Methodist Church in the UK. It is reckoned that at the current rate of decline there will be no more than 20000 members of the MC in 10 years’ time. And as I look across traditional mainline congregations, I see the same thing happening.

 

A mathematician by the name of Dr John Hayward applied the principle of contagion to church. How contagious are our churches? He applied the ‘R’ rate, or the rate of reproduction to the life of the church. The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England have ‘R’ rates of 0.9.  Anything below 1 indicates that there is no contagion or reproduction, meaning numbers of church-goers will only reduce as no new people are encouraged to become part of the church. The Methodist Church has an ‘R’ rate of .85 and here in Wales, the Church in Wales has an ‘R’ rate of 0.7. That means for every person who leaves the church (read death here), 0.9, 0.85 and 0.7 people come into the church. Soon many of our churches will be valleys of dry bones. And churches across the western world are facing the same challenges.

 

And the challenge of Ezekiel today is see that God can turn things around. And God asks Ezekiel a very important question: ‘Can the dry bones live?’ And it’s a question we need to ask ourselves. Do we believe that traditional mainline churches have the ability to come back to life or is it a case of Ichabod, the Spirit has departed? Personally, I can see God moving. It won’t be in ways we have experienced before; God never tends to repeat himself. But I don’t think the Church is past redemption. These dry bones will live, but not in a way we expect.


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